X: The Fire of D'angelos (Askael)
The hoofbeats were gone in a moment, but their thunder reverberated through Alais. It almost drowned out the beating of his heart pounding in his chest. Carried on the wind, flecks of char and ash flecked his pale face and his snowy cloak. As he returned to his correct senses, the fog that filled the clearing was quickly being replaced with smoke. Wizards of Askael sent bursts of air into the trees. The sky cleared, revealing the blueness of the sky. But the source of the smoke was already there. Hungry flames roared on the edge of the forest, smoke surging into the sky to take the fog’s place. As it turned heel and took its moisture with it, the flames too surged after it into the forest, lapping hungrily through underbrush and scarring the shells of ancient trees. The fire steadily advanced, leaving behind little but the charred corpses of the forest. Intermingled with them, unidentifiable corpses of a more animal variety. Perhaps they had once been soldiers of Askael like himself, rejuvenated and strengthened by the same vitality that surged through the forest. Perhaps they were the forest’s animals who had been unable to outrun the flames. Alais was allowing himself to drift. The burnt scar of forest before him continued to spread. He turned his back on the flames, facing his waiting army. Litters bore the injured, their cloaks covering them as meager protection. Some cloaks were gray from ash. Others lay were dyed a deep scarlet or marred by burns and shredded by powerful blows. As the cavalry returned, having driven the enemy’s scouts from the fringes of the forest, Alais gripped his sword hilt and hardened his heart. One of the cavalry officers stood before Alais to give his report. The other cavalry stood by, unregimented. He seemed ignorant of the vine whip wounds across his beet-red face. They were bleeding into his sweat, mixing with smoke and ash marks and staining his lapels. They were giving chase through the tree-line when the captain’s horse tripped on a root, snapping its hock backwards and putting rider over horse. Half the horses balked right then, for that and for the fires starting to spread. The rest abandoned the vine-choked ground, finding paths along an old riverbed. The enemy scouts gained ahead, navigating the dense roots and uneven footing with the confidence of swifts on the wing. When they were just blurs between trunks in the distance, the riverbed made a sharp turn. The reporting officer stood slack-tongued, eyes glazed. Around him, the other cavalry wore the same hollow gazes. He described the scouts’ mounts passing into view, now riderless. Their silhouettes were unmistakable; a family of deer bounded over the dry river and disappeared again into the trees. They made it back to D’angelos before the flames raged in earnest. The captain was nowhere to be found. The fire raged without the slightest hint of stopping. Wizardry kept the flames from taking the town, but they had little control of it. There are few wizards, even of yore, that could tame a wildfire. It spread to the horizon, raining inches of ash upon the town of D’Angelos and the surrounding char. It stopped at the cliff here, at a river there, and to the southeast it stopped where the trees did, laying the entire forest low. After weeks, when it was all but embers, the mistral descended, snuffing out the flames across Enmasque. It kicked ash into the air, turned the air hazy gray and stained the ground black with charcoal. An enemy force never revealed itself. Alais had D’angelos garrisoned, salvaging whatever remained of the efforts of the first expedition. His first order was for walls around the town. Many of the men, sent on expeditions for firewood and whatever meager rations they could scrounge, saw shapes moving at the edge of their vision. When they looked, it was only the black and white landscape full of cracked trees. Occasionally, it was a deer bounding away under the cover of haze. One man said he found a young sapling growing green from the ground, but when he approached it, it retreated fully into the ground, and he was surrounded by a chorus of laughter. He was confined for wildness of the mind, and pneumonia took him in the night. Off-duty, mages and soldiers stared holes in their eyelids, their imaginations active without business to distract them. Alais lay with his eyes open, thinking of the deal he’d refused from the Hoia-Baciu. Despite everything, he was sure of his decision. He knew King Sancre would have accorded. When Alais finally got to sleep, his dreams were haunted with battlefields. Bodies piled high, mangled and wrapped with climbing vines. A broth of blood and mud rose out of the ground, immersing him and the corpses. It looked like beef stew. gain the province of Enmasque. (0 power, 7 income, 7 culture) natural life of Enmasque is loathe to do your bidding. You cannot increase Power here through normal means. All units in Enmasque have their upkeep doubled. Category:NBX: Turn History Category:NBX: Conflict